1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, a control method for the apparatus, and a storage medium, and particularly to a technique of processing face images included in images.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there has been disclosed an imaging apparatus which specifies a person concerning a face image included in a captured image by performing face recognition processing for the captured image, generates a face record file in which information indicating the specified person is associated with the face image, and provides the file to an external apparatus (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2008-278350).
Some PCs (Personal Computers) installed with application software equipped with a face recognition function store a face image of a specific person included in an image in a predetermined database and search for images including the specific person based on the face image.
In general, the capacity of the storage area of an imaging apparatus is smaller than that of a PC. In addition, the storage area of the imaging apparatus is used with top priority being given to imaging processing.
In addition, since the faces of persons generally change due to temporal factors such as age, the accuracy of searching for images including a specific person decreases as stored face images become old. For this reason, the search accuracy is improved by adding new face images and updating old face images.
As described above, however, since the capacity of the storage area of the imaging apparatus is small, in order to ensure a capacity to store new face images, it is necessary to delete existing face images.
On the other hand, the face images generated by the user taking with an imaging apparatus are generally more important than the face images generated by third parties which the user has acquired via the Internet and the like. That is, when a face image obtained by the user by performing imaging operation using an imaging apparatus disappears to store a new face image, troubles arise. For example, when the user wants to use the face image previously captured by himself/herself, he/she needs to generate a similar face image by imaging the same person. If the face image which has disappeared is old, it is difficult to image the same person. In some cases, therefore, he/she cannot generate a similar face image.